Guy and Wells became frequent recording and touring partners, and can also be heard performing live on Wells’ 1966 Vanguard album It’s My Life, Baby. One of his finest moments is on the pivotal Junior Wells album Hoodoo Man Blues on Delmark, on which Guy was initially billed as Friendly Chap, as he was under contract to Chess. As a sideman, he can also be heard to great effect on Muddy Waters’ Folk Singer album. A shuffling “Let Me Love You Baby,” the impassioned downbeat items “Ten Years Ago,” “Stone Crazy,” “My Time After Awhile,” “Leave My Girl Alone,” and a bouncy “No Lie” rate with the hottest blues waxings of the ‘60s.Īlong with his own records, he was also an in-demand session player, backing Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Koko Taylor (on her hit “Wang Dang Doodle”), and Willie Dixon. Guy’s 1960-1967 Chess catalogue remains his most satisfying body of work. (All are included on the compilation album Blues Greats – Buddy Guy.)Īlthough he often complained that Leonard Chess wouldn’t allow him to turn up his guitar loud enough, the claim doesn’t wash. In 1962, Buddy had his only hit on the Billboard R&B charts, when “Stone Crazy” reached number 12. “First Time I Met The Blues” and its follow-up, “Broken Hearted Blues,” were fiery, tortured, slow blues tracks, brilliantly showcasing Guy’s whammy-bar-enriched guitar and shrieking, hellhound-on-his-trail vocals. With the release of his first Chess single in 1960, Guy found his footing as a solo artist, clearly no longer stylistically indebted to anyone. When Cobra folded, Guy followed Rush to Chess Records. King’s influence, while “You Sure Can’t Do” was an unabashed homage to Guitar Slim. “This Is The End” and “Try To Quit You Baby” exhibited more than a trace of B.B. Two searing 1958 singles for Cobra’s Artistic subsidiary, produced by Willie Dixon, were the result. He hung with the city’s blues elite: Freddy King, Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, and Magic Sam, who introduced Buddy Guy to Cobra Records boss Eli Toscano. It didn’t take long for the new kid in town to establish himself, as he became part of a younger wave of Chicago blues artists, which included Otis Rush and Magic Sam, and who came to exemplify the “West Side Sound.” Initially, times were tough, at least until he turned up the juice as a showman, emulating his idol Guitar Slim’s trick of using an extended guitar cord so he could wander through the audience as he played. In 1957, Buddy’s mother had a stroke, so he went to Chicago looking for work, ready to take the town by storm. Tichenor’s antiseptic and wine to ward off an advanced case of stage fright, but by the time he joined harpist Raful Neal’s band, he had conquered his nervousness. At his first gigs with bandleader “Big Poppa” John Tilley, the young guitarist had to chug a stomach-jolting concoction of Dr. By 1953, the 17-year-old was sitting in with Lightnin’ Slim and Lazy Lester at Baton Rouge clubs. George “Buddy” Guy was born in 1936 on a farm in Lettsworth, Louisiana (where today two plaques memorialize the town’s most famous son), and made his first guitar when he was thirteen years old.
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